


Whispers

by purple_cube



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_cube/pseuds/purple_cube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all ghosts come out to play during the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for The Fandom Snowflake Challenge on Dreamwidth - Day 7 asked participants to create a new piece of work (I changed the title and made small edits to the original posting at DW). This was the outcome - a five things fic, five 'ghosts' who visit Katniss and Peeta following the rebellion. Warning: canon-compliant character deaths.

 

1. Joe Everdeen

 

It had hurt to leave them, but he thinks that it hurts more now to watch them slowly die without him. His girls, once so happy and bright, are wasting away in front of him. And his beautiful, smiling wife is just a shell. He tries to talk to her, tries to make her see that they need her, but she won’t listen. Can’t listen, can’t hear him from wherever she is trapped.

 

So he turns to Katniss, _wills_ her to remember what he taught her, to go into the woods and provide for them. It takes her longer than he would like, she gets so much thinner and weaker in that time. But eventually, it happens – and he has the baker’s boy to thank for it.

 

He sees the boy before she does, watches his eyes find her in the rain. He can’t blame the mother for trying to chase off Katniss, but swears and screams at her for it anyway. But the boy, with his father’s kind eyes, does more than he could ever have hoped for. He keeps his daughter alive.

 

He watches the next day too, when his beautiful girl smiles at a dandelion in the grass instead of at the boy that saved her life. It’s the first smile he’s seen on her since…since he left.

 

He smiles himself when he realizes what she’s planning to do. The watching gets easier after that, because he can see his daughters eat well and _live_ , and slowly bring their mother back from her prison.

 

Years later, when he witnesses the reaping, he’s the only one who smiles when Peeta’s name is called. Not because it must surely signal the boy’s death – but because the baker’s son once saved his little girl. And maybe he can find it in his heart to do it again.

 

*

 

2\. Rue

 

“It’s known as occupational therapy,” Dr. Aurelius says. “Along with a regular routine, hobbies that are repetitive and produce something physical as an accomplishment have been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of various mental health issues.”

 

“When we were in the Capitol –“ He stops himself, and Rue thinks that he looks so far away from the boy that she remembers seeing on stage, wooing the Capitol audience with his camaraderie with Caesar Flickerman – and his love for Katniss.

 

She watches as he tries to formulate the sentences in his mind before opening his mouth. “When Coin sent me to the Capitol, Katniss told me that I was a baker and a painter. I remember the first one, I remember what it was like to work at the bakery, and to make bread and cakes at home after the Games. And in District 13…”

 

His voice trails away as he looks at the head doctor. “That was part of the therapy, wasn’t it? Decorating the cake for the wedding?”

 

Dr. Aurelius nods. “It was Haymitch’s idea. We thought about suggesting painting too, but he said that it might trigger more bad memories than good. Apparently, you used to paint what you saw in your nightmares after you returned home from the first Games. So we stuck to cake decorating.” 

 

Rue hears Peeta speak, though she struggles to catch the words now that his voice has lowered to a whisper. “I don’t remember painting.”

 

“Let’s not push things, Peeta,” says the doctor kindly as he rises to leave. “If Haymitch was right, your memories of painting could bring on more than you can cope with at the moment. Remember, we’re taking it one day at a time.”

 

The door clicks shut behind him, and she watches as the boy from District 12 plays with a pen on the tabletop, spinning it around between his fingertips. All of a sudden, his fingertips still. She watches as his eyes widen. He reaches for the small notepad and begins to scribble furiously.

 

After a moment, she realizes that the top of the pen isn’t moving from left to right as if he was writing. So she edges closer, coming around to peer over his shoulder – and sees that he isn’t writing at all. He’s drawing.

 

Ten, maybe twenty minutes pass. She stays glued at his side, watching him bring the piece of paper to life.

 

He draws the eyes – _her_ eyes – last, long after the flowers that surround her are complete. It’s a beautiful drawing; he’s made her beautiful.

 

_Peaceful, too. So Peaceful._

 

He rises from his seat, and she scoots closer to get a better look. But he doesn’t get out of her way, and she watches in alarm as his body stiffens. He grips the edge of the tables tightly, so tight that his knuckles lose their color. She leans across, peering up curiously, to see his once clear blue eyes now dark and dilated.

 

_Another flashback_.

 

She thinks she knows which one it is, too. She had been there with him, watching him recreate her in camouflage paint on the floor of the training room. She had turned to see the pained expressions and hear the uncomfortable coughs of the Gamemakers. It had made her smile.

 

Peeta’s shoulders sag, telling her that it’s over. She watches as he takes a deep breath, pulls his chair out again and sits down.

 

He turns to the next page of the notepad, and Rue lifts herself onto the table beside him to see what he creates next.

 

*

 

3\. Prim

 

She hears him alternate between loud meows and quiet whines for days on end. When it’s clear that neither will attract the attention he wants – and needs – Buttercup pushes the window of the compartment open with his nose. Once outside, he meanders, clearly torn before looking for food and returning to the safety of home in the vain hope that someone will return for him.

 

Prim scouts ahead and spots a squirrel in the bushes. Silently, she blows out a breath against its tail, grinning as it jumps out into the open. Looking up, she sees Buttercup leap towards them, even before his eyes have fully focused on the target.

 

He eats savagely, much like she had when Katniss had brought her first kill home. After, he looks around expectantly once more, as if waiting for her to turn up and take him into her arms.

 

It’s a calm day, but somehow she manages to rustle enough leaves to catch his attention.

 

“This way, baby,” she whispers.

 

But he doesn’t move. He watches the leaves quieten to their statuesque position, and then with a resigned slouch, returns to the compartment below ground.

 

Katniss lives in a trance in the Capitol, and Prim is helpless to do anything about it, at least until the trial is over and her fate has been determined. So she stays with Buttercup, and tries for weeks one end to get him to leave. Eventually, hunger wins out, and he follows her into the trees.

 

It takes four days to get the edge of District 13, and a further four to get to the Victors’ Village. She tries to keep him well fed during the journey, but she can see that it’s hard on him. She feels helpless when he is caught off guard by a wolf, but he’s braver and stronger than she ever knew. When they finally reach home, he searches and sniffs through her old room, looking for signs that she might have been there recently.

 

The sound of the door opening catches his attention. “Buttercup…” she warns softly as he hisses.

 

She physically aches as she watches Katniss cry and scream herself into a stupor, wishing that she could comfort her in some small way.

 

Buttercup takes long glances between her sister and the door. Slowly, he jumps down from the bed and makes his way to her bedroom. Prim follows, wiping at her tears roughly. He is searching again, but this time much less frantically, with such an air of resigned calm that she knows that this is his way of saying goodbye to her. Following a final glance from the doorway, he returns to Katniss.

 

Prim joins him at the foot of the bed, dropping down with a heavy sigh. “You need to look after her now,” she tells him quietly. “She needs you.”

 

She thinks that he must hear her, because stays up and alert for danger long into the night. In the morning, Prim watches her sister and her cat regard each other in a new light.

 

They both mourn her loss, and she doesn’t attempt to hold back her own tears as she watches them. She listens to Katniss call their mother, hears their first conversation since her death. And then she sees Peeta, his eyes softer and clearer than they had been during their time in District 13. She watches him watch her sister, his expression betraying his thoughts when he thinks no one can see.

 

And she thinks that maybe Katniss is going to be okay, after all.

 

*

 

4\. Cinna

 

They manage to evade the Government’s polite requests for the first four years, but there’s no escape on the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Capitol. Plutarch calls. Peeta answers. They go back and forth, Peeta’s manners slowly deteriorating until he slams the telephone down into the holder.

 

Plutarch boards the next train to District 12.

 

They remain silent as he talks, their visitor as animated and oblivious as ever. Cinna sighs, wondering, not for the first time, how different things might have been if he’d been more careful and less...bold. If he could have found a way other than martyrdom to contribute to the cause.

 

Eventually, they come to an agreement. One appearance on television. One interview, the two of them side by side, with prior knowledge of the questions to be asked. Nothing else – no celebrations, no Press junkets, no memorials.

 

He watches her become more quiet and withdrawn as the day draws closer. By the time they step on board the train, Peeta is as anxious as she is.

 

He joins them back in the Capitol, a place of such pain for all three. At the TV studio, much to his surprise, they don’t apply any make-up or offer either of them Capitol clothes.

 

“We want the world to see you for who you are.”

 

He stands with them at the side of the stage as the host gives the audience a brief history of the Games and of the Mockingjay.

 

“It’s okay,” Peeta whispers as he takes her jaw between his palms, forcing her to look at him. “It’s going to be okay, Katniss.”

 

She’s shaking her head furiously now. “I can’t do this. I can’t. It’s supposed to be over. The cameras, the Capitol. It’s supposed to be over.”

 

“It is. It _is_ ,” he insists. “This is different, you know it is.”

 

He spends the next few minutes coaxing her into breathing slowly and deeply.

 

Eventually, his right hand moves to caress her cheek. “How did you get through that first interview with Caesar?”

 

“Cinna,” she says quietly. “He told me to imagine that I was talking to him, not the Capitol.”

 

“Do you think you could do that now?”

 

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

 

“Can you picture his page in the book? Can you see him, Katniss? That soft smile, the flickers of gold on his eyelids?”

 

This time she nods.

 

“Don’t think of anything else, Katniss. Just think of how he looks in the book, and how he looked the day of the interview. Just remember him that way.”

 

When the cameras roll, Cinna positions himself carefully in her eye line.

 

It feels like she’s speaking to him – and only him – the entire time.

 

*

 

5\. Finnick

 

He had thought about visiting them before, but could never quite bring himself to leave Annie’s side for too long. He had seen Peeta, and then Katniss, as they had visited District 4 separately. They seemed well, though both were reserved enough to make it hard for him to judge the true state of their minds. 

 

When they finally visit together, Finick realizes that he needn’t have worried. Peeta is back to being himself, warm and charming and still the only inherently good person to ever win the Games. Katniss is quiet, but her clear gray eyes tell him that she’s present and not imprisoned like Annie had been before Nick was born.

 

They bring armfuls of presents for the boy’s fifth birthday, but Nick’s attention is solely focused on one: the elaborately decorated birthday cake that rivals the wedding cake Peeta had made for them. It brings tears to Annie’s eyes, and she rushes to address Peeta’s crestfallen expression.

 

“It’s just so beautiful, and it looks so much like –“

 

“I’m sorry, I forgot. I mean, I know it looks like the wedding cake – I remember it – but I forgot to think what it would be like for you to see it again.”

 

But Annie shakes off his concerns, and the cake proves to be the showstopper for the remainder of the party, with even Nick reluctant to cut into it. But eventually, it is devoured, and Finnick laughs as he watches Peeta blush under the weight of so much praise.

 

“He’s good with children,” Annie comments at the beach later. They’re sat with Katniss on the dunes, watching the blond tuft of hair disappear amongst the sand as Peeta rolls around with the kids. “Have you thought about it?”

 

“No,” Katniss says quietly. “I can’t. I mean, I don’t think I could be a mother,” she clarifies, before Annie thinks to inquire about her health.

 

His wife laughs, and he can’t help but smile at the delightful sound, even after all these years. “Did you think _I_ could, before he arrived?”

 

_I did_ , he thinks. _I knew_.

 

A sheepish grin is the only response, which merely serves to deepen Annie’s laughter. “Well, I would have called _you_ the crazy one if you did,” she says. Sobering, she rests her hand on the younger woman’s arm. “No one thinks they can be a mother, not for sure, not until the day that they are.”

 

Finnick looks at his wife, seeing glimpses of the strong, playful girl that had caught his eye on this same beach long before either of them had the Capitol’s attention. She still has bad days of course, but often a tug of her skirt from their son is enough to bring her back, and he loves watching them grow together.

 

His attention turns to Katniss, and he sees that she’s caught Peeta’s gaze. The exchange propels him back to the Quarter Quell, to when he first realized that what they had was real, as real as what he and Annie have.

 

The moment is broken when Nick runs up and collapses into Peeta’s lap, begging for a story from District 12. So Finnick goes back to watching Katniss as she quietly takes in the scene, a smile creeping onto her lips.

 

_Maybe one day, Girl on Fire_.

 


End file.
